Crandall applauds accreditation for Clemson's public health program

Lee Crandall pointed out that the specialized undergraduate degree will be useful both to educators and administrators as well as those who pursue additional degrees to work in various medical specialties. | File photo

Clemson University’s public health bachelor’s degree recently
became the nation’s only nationally accredited
health science major to stand on its own merit, unaffiliated with any
graduate-level program in public health.

Official accreditation from the Council on Education for Public Health marks
the program as first of its kind. Public health sciences professor Lee
Crandall suggested that Clemson was well-prepared for the designation, having
offered public health courses for the past 25 years.

“[The department] was
ahead of the game when there was a push in the early 2000s for baccalaureate
degrees in public health,” Crandall said. “We were so closely aligned with the
criteria already … almost as if the council had built some of the criteria and
best practices around specific aspects of our program.”

Whereas a Clemson public health sciences degree is already
valid, national accreditation increases its worth. With a nationwide trend
towards a higher awareness of health in general and a better educated health
care work force, Crandall pointed out that the specialized undergraduate degree
will be useful both to educators and administrators as well as those who pursue
additional degrees to work in various medical specialties.

“This accreditation proves we are already a stringent
program,” Crandall said. “We are only going to fine tune and improve from
here.”

The designation will remain effective for a five-year
period. For the benefit of students who graduated with the bachelor of science
in public health relatively recently, the certification is retroactive to May 2014.

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